To substitute precious metal with non-precious electrocatalysts, that can work efficiently, still remains a great challenge. Herein, we fabricated the series of nitrogen doped carbon (NC) and CoFe-NC core-shell architectures to produce dual-functionality towards oxygen reduction/evolution reactions and ultimately for Zn-air battery. The addition of NC tends to prevent the reduction of Co/Fe nanoparticles during pyrolysis which not only provide improved catalytic sites but also boost the specific surface area, graphitization degree, electron and mass transfer capacity. With distinctive core-shell morphology, the as synthesized CoFe-NC/NC shows superior OER performance with low overpotential (270 mV) than IrO2 (340 mV) at 10 mA cm(-2) and nearly close ORR activity with respect to Pt/C. When fabricated as zinc air battery application, CoFe-NC/NC shows 58 mW cm(-2) higher peak power density than that of air cathodes made of Pt/C and IrO2. Further, our catalyst shows good durability due to the synergistic effect of Fe/Co and NC shell. (C) 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.